I set up Future First around 5 years ago to build alumni networks in state schools across the country for the first time. When we launched, barely any non-selective state schools ran alumni networks. Today, the number is approaching 20% of all state schools and colleges nationally. Alumni are coming back into schools across the country as work experience providers, career role models, mentors, e-mentors, school governors, volunteers and donors. It’s amazing to see the amount of previously untapped community altruism that exists around every school and college.

I was invited to a Downing Street roundtable on changing the careers services in schools 5 years ago where I was told the model would never work in the kind of communities we were targeting because there were no role models and that everyone who graduated those schools were ‘NEETS and criminals’. I’ve really enjoyed proving that to be total bollocks.

This year, I’m helping launch a new charity, Future First International, to advise governments, school networks, school leaders and education NGOs globally on how to incorporate alumni networks into different education systems. We’d never have been able to do that without the vision and support of the Open Society Foundations who took our idea, thought bigger than we did, and helped us build the foundations to take it global. We published a report with them at the end of 2013 into alumni networks and their global presence and opportunity: http://futurefirst.org.uk/assets/Every-School-a-Community-Report.pdf

If I had the cash I would put £100k into researching, planning and advocating for a new idea that I think could have a major impact on unemployment, job satisfaction, economic efficiency and social mobility.

Given that there are many people/organisations who have £100k and care about these issues – government, corporations, foundations and individuals – I hope one of them reads this, and does it.

The idea would be to have a staff member at a secondary school/college who’s a hybrid of a Connexions officer/careers advisor, a Job Centre Plus advisor, an alumni/parent/community outreach officer and an Education Business Partnership officer.

Their job would be to source opportunities for work experience, insight days, internships and even jobs, to organise CV/interview clinics and have drop-in careers counselling services. Their target market would be former students of the school/college who could benefit from career development support.

The reason I think it’s a good idea is because:

a) People have a strong connection to their former educational establishment. Some will assume that people who didn’t do well academically at school don’t have this connection, but there’s no data to back that up. Schools/colleges will, I believe, be a better institution to engage with than Job Centres for most of the people who can benefit from this service;

b) Many schools & employers find it difficult to work together because work placement opportunities eat into curriculum time and there are child protection issues – targeting people aged, say, 18 – 30, would negate both these problems. More opportunities could be created were this programme in place;

c) There’s a swathe of people who don’t feel it appropriate to go to a Job Centre because they already have a job. They may well hate their job, get no professional development and not use their skills and talents, but they aren’t unemployed and therefore get no support. These are people who could contribute more taxes, who could add value to the economy and could be happier. For them, there is no face to face support service. Giving career development support – sprucing up your CV, getting ideas for where to apply next, access to relatable networks and opportunities – would make for a better matched labour force to job market and a happier and fairer society.

The idea doesn’t take a lot more explanation but I’m pretty sure it’s one worth exploring. In order to figure out if it’s a really good idea, someone needs to test whether people in jobs would take up the service if available, whether enough of the target population feel a positive connection to their old schools/colleges, and whether parents/alumni/local businesses would indeed be open to making opportunities available to local young people after they leave school.